Review the dungeon journal, then go to youtube and search for the fight from a mage's POV. That should give you a good starting point. Then think about what choices you'll have to make throughout the fight based on the fight's heroic mechanics so if it happens to you, you won't be taken completely be surprise.

The first pull is always the hardest, but after you start learning everything each attempt gets easier and easier. There are few fights that are truly "movement heavy", as once you get used to them you learn when you can stop moving so much and the like. Just focus on survivability other than dps until you get comfortable.

Assume you are starting with stone dogs? It isn't too far off from current except the tiles. Click, move and paint tiles yellow. I generally put up Ice barrier before clicking to help the healers out and go. Communication in this fight is key, particularly if you have chains.

While having survivability in mind, you'll still want sufficient dps to kill the boss. That being said, I'd suggest going fire over anything else (arcane) at least for now, even if you were arcane for normal, just because of the mobility dps it has. If you're not used to the encounters yet and cannot minimise movement, you will absolutely suck as arcane and no-one wants that.

As LocNess above me said, the first pull is hard, honestly, and it's more of a feeler for the fight. Once I do even 1 pull at a new boss fight I'll have all the mechanics that I have seen by then grasped, if it's the same for you, you'll be fine.

Assume you are starting with stone dogs? It isn't too far off from current except the tiles. Click, move and paint tiles yellow. I generally put up Ice barrier before clicking to help the healers out and go. Communication in this fight is key, particularly if you have chains.

Good luck and have fun!

Stone Dogs! Use 3 tanks and have the 3rd tank, prefer Guardian Druid, run tiles in kitty form and he can help pop traps, so we can just pew pew! If you are doing 10 man!

Blatty, one of the mages from Method-Eu, posted this 6 hour tutorial video for most(all?) the heroic bosses in tier 14. He explains talents, glyphs, rotations, spell choices, and strategies for all the fights along with what addons he uses. I always refer to this video when my guild is learning a new fight. The only problem is that it's a 6 hour video and the boss times aren't shown, so you will have to do some hopping around to find the one you need. I think the terrace bosses are located in separate videos.

Go to Icy Veins and read up the heroic tactics again. Then after you know you've memorized it properly go on youtube fatboss guide for 10/25 hc raiding depending on your format and be sure(since you learned the tactics) you know what the guide is showing you. Apart from that check gemming forges talents again be calm and stay focused on your role and try to not fail on the tactics that you theoretically know.

There's a significant number of 'popular' mages that have put up vids/strats out there by now in the greater wow blogo-community-sphere. You can see those to get a 'feel' if need be. That being said, your best bet right now is probably to do a few PTR runs with your guild if u can, or at least even just the LFR PTR.

For the majority of the fights the best idea I can give you is just to do what you did in normal mode. Assuming you did the normal mechanics correctly you should have no problem with heroics. For fights with significant changes (there's only one this tier and if you are just starting heroics now, you won't be seeing it) you will have to adjust to the mechanics but for the most part it's all about being confident in your rotation while adapting to mechanics.

For the majority of the fights the best idea I can give you is just to do what you did in normal mode. Assuming you did the normal mechanics correctly you should have no problem with heroics. For fights with significant changes (there's only one this tier and if you are just starting heroics now, you won't be seeing it) you will have to adjust to the mechanics but for the most part it's all about being confident in your rotation while adapting to mechanics.

This is a good point as well. Just do what you do on normal and most changes are not anything gamebreaking. You will have familiarity with all the fights to at least a certain degree (and hell, some are easier on Heroic IMO)

well you'll be doing hc stoneguards i assume...
as a mage: stay the fuck alive and dps as much as you can
i kinda felt the same way a few weeks ago, especially since it was my first time in heroic content ever, even though i play since release (with major breaks).
dont be scared, hc is a fun thing to do

If you aren't planning to do the content as hardcore and your guild absolutely requires you to push the best possible out, it is hardly worth the money. Then again if you have lots of money(Real life ^^) to throw around that you wont need otherwise, it is a dps increase. Just nothing truly amazing or gamebreaking.

was just wondering since we're going hard in 5.2.. we currently have 5 mages (me orc, 1 UD, 3 troll) and the troll mages seem to always be higher even tho we have the same ilvl gear so i was just wondering if it was clearly superior or not